Lucky for me my parents were both “I didn’t save anything for retirement, my kids will take care of me when I’m older”, so I don’t have to suffer through this.
Reading this thread, I feel like having a nice rant:
“Waah, all our problems are caused by the boomers! They’re all rich and selfish, they had the easy life and got all the money and the houses and ruined the environment while our lives were ruined!” Keep believing that and stay distracted! while the oligarchy laughs it’s ass off at you.
Pay no attention to all those poor boomers who could never get a house, who are scraping to get by–those are the exceptions that prove the rule, they must have been especially lazy or stupid boomers, if they’re not rich like the vast majority of boomers! Yeah, that’s it.
Pay no attention to the corporations that have bought up all the housing so they can rent it to you at any price they like, that has nothing to do with housing costs–it’s the boomers who were too selfish to leave you their house when they died who are to blame! Yeah, that’s it.
Pay no attention to the oil companies and big corporations that control congress to keep their profits private and costs socialized so they can spew their effluent into the environment as the world burns and the ice caps melt, it’s the boomers’ fault! Boomers only started the environmental movement and demonstrated and pressured the government into creating the EPA, Clean Air Act, and many more, but so what, all the bad things are still their fault.
Stay distracted! Keep believing what you’re told and blaming who you’re told to blame as you get older and older and the boomers all die, and then enjoy how Gen B and Gen C, etc. hate you and rail against you and blame you for all their problems. Why didn’t you–yes you! stop global warming? You could have, but you didn’t give a fuck. You who had it so easy, living your selfish life with your fresh water and electricity and air conditioning and video games and all those nice things, while their lives were ruined? It’s all your fault!
Never the oligarchs, though. Not them.
[I can also do another version of this for the right wingers, substituting immigrants for boomers].
My mom is “choosing” to spend it at a retirement home because we can’t have her live with us and my brother is an asshole. And honestly, I’d rather have her spend her last years in comfort (we won’t even be in the same country) than get some windfall when she dies.
Retirement homes aren’t cheap. She’s in her early 80s, but both of her parents lived until their 90s, so I’m guessing there won’t be much of any inheritance left over.
Yeah my parents:
explicitly told me they’re giving me nothing
told me they’d give my hypothetical grandchildren something because (and I cannot express to you enough that they explicitly stated this OUT LOUD WITH WORDS) that they would love the grandchildren more than me. My mother has talked to me at length about how she already likes these people that don’t exist more than me.
Are constantly critical of my appearance. When I tried to wear makeup as a child they didn’t want me to look “promiscuous” (because somehow using an SAT word makes it ok to tell your 10-year-old they look like a whore). My mother was constantly critical of how short clothing looked on me because I was so tall or how my chest looked in shirts because it was too big. Now that I’ve gotten those tits removed and I dress more masculine even though I never even really “came out” as anything because I just don’t care enough about gender that’s also not ok because I’m not acting my gender.
They don’t comfort me when I’m upset. They either tell me I’m upset about something stupid or say that I should be worried about more other things. I worked in Healthcare while in nursing school through the first half of COVID them graduated mid-pandemic and every time I’d mention stuff about how broken our Healthcare system is they’d want to have a “fun debate” about MAGA shit then make fun of me for getting emotional. One time I was sitting suicide watch because a guy kept ripping the ventilator mask off and begging me to let him die. The only thing that got him to keep it on was me summing up the plots of the last five books I read because after the first four hours I ran out of things to talk to him about to keep him distracted. Y’all. They thought my PTSD flashbacks were funny.
My parents are both rocket scientists but they’re not sending people to the moon or Mars. I don’t know how they reconcile a belief in Jesus with arms dealing but I’m pretty sure those dead Palestinian kids are paying for my nursing degree.
Anyway I unloaded the exact content of all those PTSD flashbacks on them, told them their voting choices were going to lead to them dying in a ditch full of maggots, then dumped all the shit my whole family talk behind each other’s backs in the groupchat and changed my phone number. Its been a year and I haven’t felt the need to drink since.
Love me? You don’t even like me. Die alone, assholes.
Sir, this is a Wendy’s.
Those are the sort of parents I left in the past, I feel you with a lot of that.
As for the grandkids, feel free to use my excuse. “I can’t afford them”. (Partially because I have to support one of them, but also kids are freaking expensive). So they can whine about not having grandchildren all they want. Kids are now 800k+, who can do that?
Well they’ve said they would support me IF-
I just went ahead and told them it’s because they didn’t stop my cousins from doing weird sexual shit to me.
Jokes on you, i grew up poor and never had an expectation of shit.
Read the body of my post
Also they will spend it on expensive overpriced healthcare they voted for.
Honestly, that and retirement homes sort of exist to extract the last wealth from the dying.
I mean, didn’t they do the exact same thing with the planet?
To be fair, the silent generation is not guilt free on that
“Fuck you, I got mine.”
-Boomers on everything from pensions to affordable housing and education to inheritances to having a habitable planet to live on
The attitude you describe is, I believe, the result of capitalist and religious propaganda that reinforces individualism rather than collectivist and non-religious yet spiritual philosophies. Those like Hinduism, Confucianism, Zen and Toaism.
Not to sell any one in particular but the common thread in the East is a different perspective than a boss in the sky eternally judging each individual.
Even if you aren’t religious, advertising will tell you you’re a special, unique and seperate individual. Desiring to stand out as famous, beautiful, smart, funny, strong etc is just a trap but one desired by many. Unfortunately, to be above others, then others must be below you. To be rich, there must be poor.
An understanding of this force of balance shows that to minimise the extremes of poverty you must minimise the extremes of wealth.
The East sees our true self is the larger whole of which we as Humanity are a small part of. While your name may seperate you conceptually, none of us are separate from the air we breath or the stars we see. Nothing is seperate even though the mind feels and believes it is so. Are you really in control? Do you beat your heart? When you make a decision, do you first decide to decide?
I only say all this because, when one genuinely switches thinking this way, then naturally you want to be generous and caring towards all others because you see everything as yourself includeing all that is non human.
These philosophies are not the complete answer to our problems because many of these philosophies were born in China and, even though it’s embedded in their culture, they are still struggling like everyone else. But a more modern widespread common understanding of the true nature of the situation may be beneficial.
*will
This is my parents. I found out from a relative that after my mom suffered an injury, that her husband was spending $2000 a month on fast food. Literally TWOOOOO THOUSAND dollars on fried chicken a month.
When the topic came up of them writing a will, they said that I’d be getting the family pictures. That’s it.
Holy shit that’s a lot of chicken
Edit: if he’s getting a 10 dollar meal that’s 200 orders of chicken. A 31 day month with 3 meals has 93 meals meaning over double what a person typically eats. If you get a 18 piece bucket looks like the price might be between 62 and 100 bucks. Let’s say 62 for fun that’s approximately 32.25 buckets or 516 pieces of chicken a month. I mean I like chicken but damn not that much
The people who are cool with this going “why shouldn’t my parents enjoy what they made, why would you want anything you didn’t work for?” are sort of missing the point. The real phrasing, that they probably would agree with, is “why should I support my children and future generations, my enjoyment is more important than their survival and secured future”
If you really think that you should only get what you work for, give back every Christmas or birthday present or any gift you’ve gotten or are getting in the future immediately. Turn down any bonus you get at work. Hell start paving your own roads.
Supporting others, especially family, is a good human trait, and shouldn’t be erroded.
I grew up in the boat of not ever expecting any type of inheritance. Then my dad remarried and it is a thing, and that discussion that makes me really uncomfortable. I am in the first camp. I don’t feel any sense of ownership or entitlement to that money.
She wants to go on a fancy trip to Bali? Good for her.
New car? Awesome.
He raised me, that was his responsibility. He did a great job and that’s all I needed.
I am sure there will be something left but I’m not hedging all of my bets on it. Work bonus stays with me, though.
I’m sorry if this is worded weirdly; my dad passed away two years ago and I am still getting used to the past tense.
I don’t think rejecting Christmas gifts is on par with telling your parents not to enjoy themselves because you want their money when they die.
I’m going to spend my money and wealth as I see fit. I will not raise my children to bank on me dying before they turn 60 (realistically they’re gonna have to deal with me for a long time) so they can inherit some sum of cash.
For context, I never expected any inheritance from either parent when they died. Neither did I get anything except for a pair of gloves.
I’m setting up my kids for their own success. 529 plan, lessons in work ethic and social skills. I donate often, and might leave some funds behind but real support shouldn’t have to be monetary.
Honestly, I’m young, and I know older people that would spend it better than their failkids.
That’s not everyone, of course, but maybe instead of blaming people born at a slightly different time we should focus on being mad that there’s no non-hereditary path to wealth in the first place.
Yeah, my parents go on regular vacations all over the world, have redone their kitchen THREE times in the last decade (along with every room of their entire 3000 sq ft house), and can’t be bothered to help me out when I encounter a major expense.
I don’t know what they think is going to happen when they are too old to take care of themselves, but I can barely afford to take care of my immediate family so there’s no way in hell I could support them too. Hope they set aside some of those fat stacks of cash for a nursing home because my retirement plan is dying poor at my workdesk (or on the street if I become too old to work).
Minor suggestion. Try dying poor at your boss’s desk. You have nutrients and minerals that can be extracted for our use, don’t be a hog.
Stark self sufficiency and individualism is their philosophy. Too bad they forgot what their parents gave them so they could reach that point. Including the political atmosphere of unions and good paying jobs.
The hospitals and retirement facilities plan to absorb every cent left.
Yea the picture is not related at all. Elder care is bleeding their money dry, they’re not choosing to spend it on lavish vacations.
Once you get to a point where you run out of insurance and health savings, you have to go to Medicaid, which will take your house and the rest of your savings after you die. (And if you try to give your house to your child before you die, unless you do it 5 years before enrolling in medicaid you will get a huge delay in services)
They’re trying to victim blame boomers for being robbed by these industries.
My mom just wanted to make enough to spend it over her lifetime, and that seems fair to me. She got nothing from her parents and had to support her own mom in her old age, and didn’t want to cost us anything.
I would argue that inheritance is a huge driver of inequality. I have gotten small amounts from the estate of my dad’s parents (my dad died when I was 16) and a childless relative and even those amounts jumped us ahead some, I can imagine what some huge amount unearned would do - but it’s just that. Unearned.
Middle class families passing down inheritance is not a driver of inequality.
A dozen individuals controlling 60% of the wealth in America is.
Which is the big unspoken thing here: the only reason millennials/ Gen Z would even care about ‘inheritance’ is because everything has gone so fucking far to shit that it seems the only way to claw out of the hole they’re being shoved into. It’s turned into a lottery wish.
I wholeheartedly agree with that - what we need is not a system of generational wealth being passed down particular families, but an economic system that spreads it out better.
They can both be drivers of inequality, but the billionaire bullshit is by far the greater kick in the nuts.
Yeah but how did they get it, and who will get it when they die? It’s like a feedback loop.
Inheritance is still inequality in that those receiving it did nothing to deserve it.
Considering that rich boomer parents are almost exclusively fucking terrible, I’d say having to grow up with them makes it more palatable. They may get some money, but they never got love.
